


Survive

by purplefloofs



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cussing, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Reader is resourceful, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:27:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefloofs/pseuds/purplefloofs
Summary: You had been successfully surviving on your own, but you weren't living until you were surviving alongside them.





	1. Georgia Heat

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters (except my self-inserted reader) or the storyline.
> 
> Just imagine yourself in the walking dead world living with the Atlanta survivors. This fic is set in season 2 and will continue on into the next seasons.

“Oh God, I hate this fucking heat…”, You muttered as you wandered through the woods of Starr’s Mill Waterfall. You weren’t lost, no…you were never lost. Exploring had been a habit of yours even before this shit-show began. You’d spend hours driving around Atlanta, mapping out routes, and just learning the city because you wanted to. Of course, not wanting to go home had been a prime motivator, but it was relaxing to just explore the concrete jungle. With the ongoing apocalypse, your favorite past-time had become a necessity for survival. It had been a month since you had settled near the waterfall. You had been scouting the surrounding area ever since. The first two weeks, you ventured north and struck gold. Between the strip mall and supermarket, you had managed to scavenge enough supplies to last you for as long as you lived. The next two weeks, you had gone out east and found absolutely nothing; just miles and miles of forested area. Today, you were planning to take an excursion west. You had left the adventure down south for last. It was either all forest or farms. Farms meant people and people meant trouble. The dead you could take on, but unlike the dead, the living could fight and your handguns, combat or throwing knives were no match for the living. 

Lost in thought, you broke through the tree line and out onto a road. Taking a pause, you looked around you. It seemed fairly deserted, as expected of the back roads of Senoia, Georgia. Sweat had begun to drip down your brow, trickling down your neck and chest. 

“Alright, (Y/N), time to make a decision. You can either: 1) walk straight, stick to the plan, and die of a heat stroke in the middle of an apocalypse. OOOR 2) walk up this road to that supermarket and get yourself a damn umbrella because you need one…..” You groaned, before looking towards the right. You could spot subtle movement far up the road. Looking back at the woods across from you, you reached behind you, and slid the water bottle out from the side pocket of your backpack. “Well, shit…” you grumbled. You had forgotten to fill the bottle when you headed out this morning. Glancing towards your right, you thumbed the combat knife sheathed at your hip as you watched the dead ambling in your direction. They were a ways up the road, but they were still headed towards you. With a sigh, you let your hand fall from your hip, slid your bottle back in place, and trudged towards the woods in front of you.

 

“Wild, wild west, it is then.”

 

An hour in and you hadn’t come across anything useful. Well... you weren’t necessarily looking for anything. You had more than enough supplies at your disposal, but it always helped to scavenge for things that might eventually come in handy. Besides, it was useful for a lone woman such as yourself to be familiar with her surroundings…just in case. Every two miles, you had been placing darts and small pieces of colored cloths high on the trees. It was your way of keeping a sense of direction and in case trouble struck, you could always find your way to a hiding spot. The sun had really been beating down on you, even with the shade provided by the trees. Your grey tank top stuck to your body like a second skin and the blue-green, plaid flannel you had worn over it felt suffocating. Your black jeans and leather boots were not helping in this hellish weather either and man, was it fucking sweltering. You took out a map from your back pocket and studied it for a few minutes. “Another mile and I should hit the creek, Yessssss!” you thought, as tucked the map away and started walking with renewed vigor. 

You could hear the gurgling of water. It had been faint a little while back, but you could tell that sweet relief was just below the hill. “I’ll probably have to climb down to get to the water”, you said to yourself, as you slung your backpack off your shoulder and placed it on the ground. As you rummaged for the rope you had packed before leaving, there was a rustling of leaves and sounds of something struggling that accompanied the sounds of the creek. “Hmmm… sounds like a walker got stuck in some shit down there” you thought and you unsheathed your combat knife as you stood back up. With rope and knife in hand and your bag back around your shoulders, you continued the short walk towards the edge of the hill.

“You best shut the hell up, Merle!”

You froze in your tracks.

 

“What the fuck’s a ‘Merle’?”


	2. Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay in posting. Life is weird. I'll try to keep posting every week, but no promises.

Daryl

 

“You best shut the hell up, Merle!”

_“Or what? You gon’ come up here and shut my mouth for me? Well, come on and **do** it then if…you just need to focus!”_

Daryl looked up to see Merle bursting into laughter. He might be a hallucination, but Merle could always grind his gears.

It had been a week since they arrived at the farm. Daryl had gone out every day looking for Sophia. He had searched the creek, the church, and the highway, but the little girl was nowhere to be found. He figured she’d have circled back to the creek, and so, he took Hershel’s horse and went out to look for her. What he hadn’t expected was to fall on his own arrow after getting thrown off said horse.

Now, as he struggled to climb the muddy hill, it became clear to him that he just may not survive this. “Damn fuckin arrow…” he grumbled. Finding his footing in a small out-growth of roots, he propped himself up to grab the next closest branch. The sudden movement caused the wound in his side to send a fresh wave of pain shooting through his body, making him lose grip on the branch he had been holding on to. He lost his footing and slid down the hill, weighed down by the heavy bow on his back.

_“Hey! Kick off them high heels and climb.........-ease keep going! You’re….inches away. Please, c’mon….”_

“I said SHUT UP, MERLE!”, he shouted back. Ignoring the blend of voices above him, he renewed his efforts to climb. The pain from his wound was leaving him feeling weak and nauseated. He had been bleeding for a little while now, even with his makeshift tourniquet. Black had started to creep in at the edges of his vision. A whimper escaped him as he tried to swing himself over a thick root sticking out of the slope.

_“…you’re hurt and been bleeding ou-…..keep moving! The dead are coming and I refuse to leave you here, so CLIMB!…….You know what? I’d take a pause for the cause brother…..”_

The darkness was really starting to set in. Above him, Merle’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away.

“….. _please  just reach up a little more…..‘cause I don’t think you gon’ make it to the top!”_

He looked up to see how far the edge of the hill was, but all he saw was the blurry outline of his brother extending his hand.

“ _Come on! Just give....Come on, little brother! Take….Grab your…my…friend Rick’s….HAND!”_

As a last ditch effort, Daryl pushed himself to grab the edge of the hill. Instead of clutching at dirt and pines, his hand wrapped around a soft sun-tanned arm. “Fuckin shit day”, he thought as he heard the telltale groans and felt the fingers dig into his arm. He was too tired to fight back; the blood loss had left him feeling weak and the climb had taken whatever little energy he had left in him. He closed his eyes, bracing himself for the agonizing pain of the bite, but only felt a pull. “Do it, asshole!” he cried out, but again he was met with an insistent tug. “Piece of shi-“ he stopped short as he looked up and found himself staring into a pair of vibrant (brown) eyes.

“Hi!”

Her voice cut through the haze of exhaustion that had clouded his mind. She did not feel like a hallucination, going by the warmth of the skin under his hand.

“You’re not Merle.” Daryl replied.

“No, and I’d rather not be dead either, so hurry up and climb!” she insisted, pulling harder on his arm.

He could tell she was struggling to hold onto him, so he hurriedly tried to pull himself up to get over the edge. As he got more within reach, she put her arms around his chest and heaved him up faster onto the flat ground. However, Daryl was heavier than her and with the added weight of the bow and his weakened state, she was thrown off balance as he leaned into her and they both fell on their sides. Daryl rolled onto his back and lay there, struggling to keep conscious. His bow was digging into him, but he had already spent the last of his energy to even care.  At the sound of her getting up, he looked over and saw her unsheathing a knife. Acting on instinct, he reached for the gun on his side, but then he saw her cutting the rope around her waist and relaxed.

“If you think you can sit up and have your bow ready, do it quickly because biters are here! I’ll protect you as long as you watch my back.” she said without looking at him, taking out a second knife as she walked away out of his line of sight.

 

Reader

 

You counted five of them closing in on you. Three of them were almost less than a foot away. “Here goes nothing..” you muttered. The three closest to you came at you at the same time. You kicked the middle one in the torso, making him stumble backwards as you stabbed the right one between the eyes. Yanking your knife out fast, you rammed sideways into the chest of the left one, sending him to the ground, and threw yourself back at the first biter. With a cry, you drove your knife upwards into his head from under his chin. The biter dropped with the knife still stuck in his head. The biter on the ground had started to claw at the man behind you, but you stepped on his neck and stomped on his head until it was mush.

“You ok?” you breathed out. The guy looked close to passing out, sitting on the forest floor propped against a tree.

He grunted in return as he met your eyes, but then shifted his focus behind you. Just then, you felt a pull on your hair and felt yourself getting dragged backwards. “Urgh FUCK!” you pulled your head forwards and twisted yourself around just to see a set of ugly chompers right in your face. You shrieked and closed your left hand around the biter’s neck to keep him away as you brought the knife in your right hand up and drove it through its head. As the biter dropped, the last one lurched at you from behind it. You froze momentarily and it was on you before you could get your defenses up. A strange whistle pierced the air next to your ear and the biter fell. You let out a deep breath you didn’t realize you had been holding. Turning around, you saw the man had the bow raised up.

“Thanks…”

You stood there, staring at him. A few seconds passed before he lowered his bow and let it fall to his lap. He leaned his head back against the tree and was blinking hard. Your eyes went to his side and saw it soaked with blood. “Shit…” you threw you knife to the side and rushed towards him. Dropping to your knees in front of him, you pulled the backpack from behind you and started taking out your first aid supplies.

“I thought I would be using these on myself one of these days with the way things are. I am so glad I packed extra stuff for today’s trip. Figured I’d be out here for longer than usual, so more chances of getting hurt, am I right?”  you mused out loud and made to reach for his side, when his hand grasped your wrist stopping you. You looked back at his face and saw him regarding you with suspicion.

“Hey.. I am just trying to help, ok? I was exploring the area to get a lay of the land. Was running out of water so I figured I could fill my bottle up at the creek and maybe camp out nearby. Was about to set up camp when I heard a struggle and thought it was a biter stuck in a ditch, but then I peeked over the edge and saw you. You were making enough noise to attract those five and had I not been around, you would be their midday snack. If I wanted to hurt you, all I needed to do was not intervene, but I did and here we are. So, will you just please let me help you and not have my efforts go to waste?”

He stared at you for a few seconds before letting his grip relax. You nodded at him, before setting to work on his wound. Cutting through the wrapping and his shirt, you cleaned up his side with a clean rag. “This is going to sting a little…” you muttered before pouring rubbing alcohol on his wound. He let out a hiss, but didn’t flail as you had expected him too. “I am going to stitch you up now. Make no mistake, I am no doctor or nurse. I did take some basic EMT courses one time and well, I am good at stitching up holes in my clothes, so this..haha… shouldn’t be too difficult..” you chuckled nervously as you threaded the needle. You could feel his piercing blue eyes boring into you as you inched towards his side. Stopping right at his wound, you looked up at him. “Stay still” and with that, you began to stitch his wound.

“Either he has a crazy high pain tolerance or he’s probably fucked in the head because of the blood loss and can’t feel this.” you thought to yourself as you sewed away. The blonde still had his eyes locked on you, but had yet to say a word to you. You got that he didn’t trust you judging by the way he was observing your every move. It was easier to stay wary because the world had gone to hell and it was every living person for himself. Thankfully, he believed you enough to let you help him and hadn’t moved a muscle since you started. A few minutes passed and you were finished. You smeared a small amount of anti-bacterial cream on the stitches and taped a dressing on it. You moved back to pack your supplies away. As you zipped up your backpack, you glanced sideways at him. He still seemed to be staring at you, but his expression was less suspicious now. He did look quite pale and you promptly offered him your water. He took it instantly and gulped it down. His action brought a small smile to your face. You looked back down at your backpack. With a small chuckle, you rummaged through the front pocket and produced two protein bars. Shifting into a cross-legged position, you held one of the bars out to him.

“(Maryam) (Raza)”

He set the bottle aside and looked at you for a moment, before taking the bar you and turning it over in his hand.

 

 

“Daryl Dixon.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
